Maria Martin, co-director of Downtown Lawrence Inc. and owner of Southwest and More, knows how she’ll start her day Thursday  early and with a crowd.

Thursday is Downtown Lawrence’s 31st Annual Sidewalk Sale, and Martin knows there will be people waiting for her when she arrives before 6 a.m. to begin moving marked-down merchandise out to the sidewalk.

“If you are a downtown merchant, that is a beautiful sight,” Martin said. “Seeing not just one but maybe 10 or 15 people sitting in their cars, drinking a cup of coffee waiting for you to open your store makes you feel good. You know it is going to be a good day.”

The sale officially runs from sunrise to sunset, but Martin said the buying usually began about 6 a.m. and continues until about 8 p.m. She estimated about 125 downtown stores would take part in the sale, and 20,000 people would browse for bargains. Merchants generally cut prices 30 percent to 70 percent.

Shoppers should have an easier time finding parking this year, thanks to the new city parking garage. The 500-space garage is in the 900 block of New Hampshire Street.

“We think it will help the parking situation a great deal,” Martin said. “Probably the best deal in town is parking in the garage literally all day for a dollar.”

Martin said event organizers were urging shoppers to search the garage or the two-hour free parking lots along New Hampshire and Vermont streets before driving onto Massachusetts Street. Massachusetts Street, and all other downtown streets, will be open to normal traffic, but Martin warned that traffic typically moved slower on sidewalk sale day.

That may be the only thing moving slower. Merchants said business usually was busy.

“There are some very serious shoppers out there,” said Jon Francis, owner of Francis Sporting Goods and the Sportcenter. “Every year we have people come in the day before wanting to know what is going to be on special.

“We’ve even had people try to grab an item out of someone else’s hand or try to grab it out of our hand when we’re bringing it out to the sidewalk. The first hour of the day is just plain crazy.”

But Francis, who also is president of Downtown Lawrence Inc., said the event was always a lot of fun. He said he had a family of customers who came up every year from Oklahoma to shop the sale.

“You just see so many people you know that it makes it a fun day to work,” Francis said. “I can almost guarantee you there will be certain people show up in our store at a certain time. It’s really a who’s who of Lawrence.”

But it’s also a serious business day for most downtown merchants. Martin estimated that for most businesses, the one-day event produced sales totals that were equivalent to a strong weekend during the holiday shopping season.

Francis, like other business owners, uses the sale to get rid of old merchandise to make room for fall and winter lines. He said the annual sale was important for his stores.

“It is basically our January,” Francis said. “We almost do as much sales on that one day as we do during the whole month of January.”